Rosabel Choi

BMus (Oberlin), MMus (U Calgary), DMA (Arizona S U)

Award-winning pianist Rosabel Choi completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts in Piano Performance at Arizona State University (ASU). An adventurous musician, she collaborates with diverse artists and curates projects that find connections between music of all eras, from traditional to contemporary. Rosabel’s work is constantly in search of creating original and unexpected ways to communicate to audiences as a performer, teacher and arts administrator.

During studies in Oberlin and Calgary, she received numerous top awards, including the Dean’s Talent award, Rudolph Serkin scholarship, Austrian-Canadian Mozart Competition, Kiwanis Rose Bowl, University of Calgary Open Scholarship, and the Roslyn McCowan Award. Performing extensively as a soloist and chamber musician, she performed in tours of the Toronto, Montréal, Baltimore and San Francisco areas. As a pianist in the Mash Potangos, a tango ensemble that formed at the Banff Centre, she has given acclaimed performances in concert halls, traditional tango balls, jazz clubs, loft spaces, bars and cafés across the continent. With the Mash Potangos, she enjoys arranging, writing, transcribing and teaching music; they use tango as a vehicle to direct projects such as a week-long workshop for the OrchKids, an El Sistema-inspired program for Baltimore youth.

As guest faculty, Rosabel has taught at the University of Alberta, ASU, MRU, and the Peabody Institute of John Hopkins. She has been awarded grants and scholarships from organizations such as the Banff Centre, ASU, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Anne Burrows Music Foundation, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Canada Council for the Arts. As an advocate of the arts and community engagement, she presented a paper on curricular development at the College Music Society International Music Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has been with the VCM since September 2016 as the Assistant Program Director for the Department of Postsecondary Studies and the Office of the Dean. In addition to her classical music training and performance experience, Rosabel enjoys playing and teaching in a variety of different styles including tango, folk, contemporary music and improvisation.

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The Victoria Conservatory of Music wishes to recognize and acknowledge the Songhees, Esquimalt, W̱ SÁNEĆ and Beecher Bay Nations, on whose traditional territories we are privileged to work, create, and perform.